


Selfish

by sunshinebb



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kageyama has self esteem issues, M/M, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29271081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinebb/pseuds/sunshinebb
Summary: Right before nationals, Kageyama and Hinata actually think about their feelings. When they use their singular braincell, things go wrong. Eventually things do go right.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	Selfish

**Author's Note:**

> A little out of character at the end, but I hope you enjoy!

Even with the overbearing confinement of the gymnasium, the air shook as every single member of the Karasuno volleyball team pushed to do more: more serves, more spikes, more receives, more everything. As the minutes turned into hours, the players started to collapse into exhaustion, reaching for the waters and chugging as fast as they could. Even Tanaka and Noya struggle to find enthusiasm for their team after the painstaking training. Just as the team is about to pass out on the sweaty, slippery floor, Daichi and Suga step up to their teammates, Daichi waving for their attention.  
“We have trained hard. We have fought over and over again, but that was just half the battle. Next week, we are going to go to nationals and we’re going to beat anyone that keeps us from our title. We are no longer the ‘fallen crows’, we are Karasuno and we will win, no matter what.”

At this moment, the energy in the room is restored. Tanaka, Noya, and Hinata were starting to sit up, ready to bounce up from their seats and dash around and scream, scream for their teammates and friends, scream for their opponents, scream for their school and the experience they may never again have. Before they have the joy of doing so, Suga stands in front of Daichi, a small, gentle grin embroidering his face.

“That being said... Don’t overdo it guys. I know it’s tempting to train constantly right now, but you have to give your body a break and make sure it’s in prime condition for Nationals. Go get changed!”

As if they heard absolutely nothing that Suga just told them, Hinata and Kageyama share a glance, a beaming smile on Hinata’s face and a sly grin on Kageyama’s. They were going to go practice more.  
As they pretend to make their way home, Kageyama points out a nearby park. Hinata starts to dash to the flat ground, yelling, “TOSS TO ME KAGEYAMA”. Despite already walking to Hinata, ball in hand, Kageyama rolls his eyes and quietly scolds, “there’s no reason to scream, idiot.” He tosses the ball from far past the boundary, seeing if he has the skills to set from that far and seeing if Hinata is able to spike from that far. Like two dancers moving as one, they both move in complete synchronization, hands lining up perfectly, slamming the ball with absolute precision. They look at each other for half a second before Hinata calls out for another toss. They stay like that for the rest of the night, moving as if they know what the other is thinking, not even having to verbalize what they want to do. At around midnight, Kageyama picks up the volleyball.

“Kageyama! One more toss!

“It’s getting late, you know.”

“Of course I know! I just thought you wouldn’t back down from more practice. This is why I’m going to beat you someday!”  
As Kageyama sets his final toss of the night, he can’t help but to break his cold demeanor and smile at his partner. He never had someone like Hinata who could keep up with him, who would be able to spike his sets. The more he got to know his partner, the more he knew that there would never be a duo like them. No matter if he went to the Olympics or got to be on Japan’s national team, there is no other spiker like Hinata. While he doesn’t have the height of a traditional spiker, he can compete with and annihilate any competition. 

Without even missing a beat, the aforementioned spiker looks at his setter, standing with a bizarre smile on his face and goes, “oh my god, stop that, you look entirely too creepy right now.”  
At that, Kageyama is pulled back into real life. He immediately tells Hinata to go home and get some sleep. Hinata beams and tells him to show up early for morning practice the next day.

As Kageyama makes his way home, he doesn’t know why he can’t shake his spiker from his mind. Something about him is just different than everyone else he’s ever known. No matter what, he can not shake the unbreakable link that they seem to share, he will always be attached to the first person who has kept up with him, his first real friend. Even as he starts to drift to sleep that night, it is Hinata who he thinks of as he closes his eyes. 

The next morning, Hinata dashes out of his house, barely paying attention to anyone or anything else. He jumps on his bike, knowing that he will have to go extra fast down the mountains or else he won’t beat Kageyama to morning practice. From the distance, Kageyama sees Hinata speeding down the mountain and immediately starts bolting to their school’s gymnasium. As they get closer, Hinata hops off his bike and lays it near the entrance. He knows he will have to run twice as fast to make up for that lost time, but eventually he does speed right past his partner, falling at the closed gym door. On the ground, he stutters out, “I won this one… that’s 116 to me, 115 to you.”  
“Fine. I’ll beat you tomorrow to even out the score.”

As the two first-years lay on the floor, gasping for breath, the two captains suddenly appear, staring at the two idiots who think it’s a great idea to wear themselves out right before practice. Suga and Daichi just sigh as they unlock the huge double doors and their underclassmen crawl to the gym.

After all the other team members come in for practice, Hinata and Kageyama suddenly get their energy back, ready to bounce back and practice as much as possible. Even though they only got a few hours of sleep, they are more awake and productive than ever. This productivity doesn’t last through class, however: they fall asleep as soon as they get to English and don’t fully wake up until they head up to their lunch table. As soon as they finish their bentos, Hinata immediately asks Kageyama to practice some more, thinking that he would immediately say yes. To his utter and complete surprise, Kageyama tells him no, that they’ve practiced too much and need to relax. Hinata’s draw drops to the ground, this had never happened before. Before he goes to protest, Kageyama starts talking about attack strategies for Nationals. Eventually, the conversation strays with ease from volleyball to random conversation topics: their family, movies, classes. Even though they seemingly have no link besides volleyball, they were quickly able to talk about everything and anything. They have become more than the freak volleyball duo.  
On the way home from practice, Kageyama and Hinata start to walk home, Hinata rolling his bike alongside him. Without realizing, they fall into a pattern, joking around and strategizing without even stopping to practice. Eventually, they pass where their paths split and Kageyama ends up walking Hinata all the way home. They reach his street and Hinata suddenly realizes this and stops in his tracks. 

  
“AHHH! You walked me all the way to my house!!”  


“Yeah. I guess I did.”  
“Why?!”  
“I don’t have to be home yet.”  


Hinata is still flustered but ultimately decides to just accept that explanation. They say their goodbyes, but Hinata just can’t seem to shake what just happened and how their relationship is consequently affected.  


That night, he lies in bed, body aching despite not practicing that much. His eyes fail to close as he tries to lull himself to sleep, mind full of thoughts of his setter. “UGH”, he thinks to himself, “why can’t I stop thinking about Kageyama?” The more he thinks about it, the more confused he gets. He’s never known anyone like Kageyama. He shares his passion, his ambition, his love. If Hinata is the sun, then Kageyama is the moon, working together in harmonic precision. That must be it. They were born to be teammates. That must be it. Even though Hinata comes to that conclusion, there’s something else he just can’t quite put his finger on. He figured it out, so why is he not falling asleep.  


The next morning, the normally energetic, excitable Hinata is basically a zombie. He lugs himself to morning practice, leaving a confused Kageyama waiting at the doors of the gym.  


“Oi idiot. Why are you so late? Now we’re even. 116 to 116.”  
“I’m just tired.”  
“Well, snap out of it. We have to practice.”  


At this, Hinata decides to try, even if his legs feel as if they are attached to a thousand-pound weights, he has to keep going, keep flying. By the end, he can not spike or receive any volleyballs. No matter how hard he tries, nothing is going the way he wants it to. Suddenly, he is back in middle school, unable to do anything, with no team behind him. The more Hinata fails, the more Kageyama reverts back to his middle school self, yelling out demands and setting nearly impossible balls. He starts screaming at Hinata, trying to get him to move to spike the ball. As the screaming continues, the setter tries to keep up, but physically can not. In a last ditch attempt, when Kageyama’s yelling gets a little too loud, Hinata pushes himself further than he ever has, running as fast as he can, jumping as high as he can.

“A little further”  
“Just a tiny bit higher”

His palm collides with the ball and slaps it to the edge of the court. His eyes shoot open, looking for Kageyama, it’s only when he looks around that he realizes that he is still moving in midair. When he gives it all he has, he fails to realize how hard it is to land on his feet. His world stops as he starts to crash to the floor, falling backwards, arm bending against the waxy floor. Immediately after Hinata collides with the ground, his first instinct is to get right back up again and tell his teammates that he’s fine. Instead, when he opens his mouth, he’s overwhelmed by the blood-curdling scream he lets out. He looks around as he’s lying on the ground, seeing the puddle of blood around him and at his completely bent wrist. He hears the fast steps approaching him and right before he fades into unconsciousness, Hinata feels Kageyama’s calloused hand hold his uninjured one. It is when he feels that weight in the only unaching part of body that Hinata knows that this is not some sick nightmare, but his reality with overbearing consequences.  


He wakes up in the hospital bed, not knowing how much time has passed or the severity of his injuries; but, when he looks around and sees all his teammates standing by his side, he knows that he will make it through. However, the more he looks around, the sooner he realizes that someone’s missing.  
“Where’s Kageyama?”  
Before anyone even has the chance to answer Hinata, he already comes up with his own answer in his head. Nationals. He won’t be able to play in Nationals. He has finally become useless to him. That’s why he’s not here to see Hinata.

Someone answers Hinata anyway, but now he is only thinking about Nationals. A year ago he vowed to be the one who stayed on the court the longest, now he wouldn’t even be able to participate. All that training. All those midnight and morning practices were for nothing. For a broken wrist to be the ultimate deciding factor of his future.  
As though they are reading his thoughts, Suga and Daichi immediately start to comfort Hinata about Nationals. “There will be other tournaments, you’re only a first-year.” Before he even has the chance to hear them out, Hinata breaks down. Sobbing for the illusion of pain in his wrist, numbed by too many painkillers, sobbing for the months of useless practice and conditioning, sobbing for the partner who finally realized that he is worthless without volleyball. He stays like that for hours, sobbing or being reduced to silent tears as his teammates leave his room one by one.  
After the last teammate leaves his room, Hinata almost wants to call Kageyama. To yell, or cry, or scream, he didn’t quite know. After minutes of consideration, he calls the number, only to realize he has nothing to say, and promptly hangs up. Exhausted from the heart-wrenching tears, Hinata finally lays his head to rest.

It’s two in the morning and Kageyama can’t sleep. No matter how many times he listens to ocean sounds or a boring audiobook, he can’t escape his thoughts. He can’t but think that if he hadn’t pushed Hinata so much, hadn’t teased him, had seen the signs, that this wouldn’t be happening: that Hinata would be laughing, sending him a meme at midnight and joking about Nationals. Kageyama knows that no matter how much he tries to change, he will always be his middle school self: a tyrannical, egotistical king. He knows a king who doesn’t serve his citizens should not be celebrated. Yet, he was going to play in Nationals and Hinata wasn’t. The energetic, life of the team wasn’t going to be on court for the biggest game of their life because he pushed him too far on a bad day. 

The moment Hinata crashed to the ground, Kageyama’s perspective shattered with the crush of Hinata’s wrist. The second he ran to his partner, seeing him in such a chilling state, Kageyama knew that he truly loves Hinata Shouyou. He loves the way he smiled after they are treated to pork buns, he loves how he celebrates after hitting a particularly good spike, he loves when Hinata texts him a million texts messages at once. But even more than this love, Kageyama loathes. He loathes the way he ignores his partner when he’s celebrating, he loathes the way he calls Hinata annoying for spamming his phone, and most of all, he hates that he is the reason why Hinata is laying bedridden in the hospital.  
It doesn’t matter how much Kageyama loves him. He will give everything up without anything in return to see Hinata fly once again. 

Days pass and every single person on the team is trying to get Hinata and Kageyama to see each other and every single time, without fail, they both say no, stuck in their own heads on what the other person thinks and how they messed up. Kageyama walks past Hinata’s street every single day, knowing he isn’t there. His teammates watch him pace up and down the street of the mountain, listening to an album Hinata recommended. Hinata stays uncharacteristically silent in his recovery suite, but his friends chalk that up to the injury. It isn’t until they look at his phone that they realize what his real problem is. He hasn’t answered a single “get well” text from his friends from other schools, yet his phone stays set on his messages with Kageyama, as if he is praying that his setter texts him. As if the only thing is waiting on is a message from him. 

The day Hinata gets discharged from the hospital, Tanaka and Noya decide on a plan. They’re making sure that Kageyama is walking past Hinata’s street when they drop him off. Then, they will have to talk and sort everything out. Despite Tanaka and Noya not being traditionally the smartest, their plan actually goes well. They pull up to see Kageyama right outside Hinata’s door and they tell him that he is there to help him move back in.Their eyes meet, but instead of that pure fire that the two usually embody, an awkwardness fills the air. They both look at the floor, not even referencing their other teammates. It isn’t until Kageyama takes one of his bags that Hinata goes to let him into his house. The silence becomes louder, as if theyre actively trying to make their silence a competition. Kageyama asks where to put a bag and the moment is broken. Hinata points his injured arm in the direction of his room and Kageyama finally gets the nerve to ask how he’s doing. Hinata is the sun, a blazing inferno that never halts, never ceases. At this moment, instead of the anger Kageyama is expecting, Hinata just stares emotionless at his favorite person, completely extinguished.  


“Don’t pretend with me. I don’t even know why you’re here, Kageyama.”  
Kageyama is prepared for the anger, for the passion. He isn’t prepared for the complete dismissal from his best friend. Kageyama wants to scream, make up for the passion Hinata is lacking, but he knows that he truly doesn’t deserve to yell at him. What he deserves is Hinata’s hatred. He remains silent. At the same time, Hinata starts to become more distressed, shaking and balling his fist up “Why aren’t you answering me?!”

Kageyama stays silent.

That silence remains for what feels like hours, suffocating Kageyama as he realizes that nothing will ever be the same. He will never see Hinata’s smile, hear his laugh, or touch his hair ever again. Eventually, the empty air is slowly filled with muffled cries. At this, Kageyama decides to finally look at his partner, completely crumpled on the ground, sobbing as if his life depends on it. At that moment, Kageyama knows that he messed up. In an effort to fix the pain he caused him before, he actually just added fuel to the fire. Without hesitation, Kageyama runs to his partner, trying to fix what he has shattered. He envelopes the smaller boy in his arms, trying to comfort him. 

“I’m sorry Hinata. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

The more Kageyama tries to console him, the more he himself breaks down. Eventually, Hinata looks up and realizes that they have been sobbing in eachothers’ arms. Hinata puts his hand on his setter’s face. “Yamayama, why are you crying?” Kageyama starts crying harder, stuttering out “this is all my fault”.  
“No it’s not. I pushed myself too hard. I’m the one who did too much. Not you.”  
“I yelled too much. I should’ve been kinder.”  
Hinata suddenly starts to laugh, “god, you’re talking about being kinder? What happened to the Kageyama I knew before?”  
“Shut up.”

Suddenly the air in the room shifts from being jokey to being serious once more. “But, why didn’t you visit me in the hospital?”  
Kageyama sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t want to see you like that.”  
Grinning, Hinata retorts, “Oh, so you were being selfish.”

Immediately put on defense, Kageyama starts stuttering out a real explanation, but Hinata just keeps laughing at him. The longer this goes on, the more frustrated Kageyama becomes. Why can’t he defend himself? When he hears Hinata giggle, that is Kageyama’s last straw. He suddenly lowers his voice and murmurs,  
“I wasn’t trying to be selfish. I didn’t want to see you because I love you.”

Hinata’s giggles immediately halt. Kageyama doesn’t dare look at his partner. If there is any way he can live in his bubble with Hinata, the world where they stay friends and he isn’t completely rejected, he would stay in it as long as he can. His bubble pops as soon as he hears his spiker’s overwhelming laugh once again. In between laughs, Hinata lets out, “God Tobio! That’s what I was talking about! That’s the definition of selfish!” 

Kageyama is ready to run for the hills, immediately assuming Hinata rejected him. However, an unconscious smile spreads across Kageyama’s face as he breaks down exactly what Hinata just told him.

“You called me by my first name.”

Hinata reaches for Kageyama’s hand and pulls himself in closer, resting his head on his setter’s chest. He looks up and smiles the widest smile he ever has and says, “well yeah, of course I’m going to call my boyfriend by his first name. 

They stay like that for hours. Hand in hand, lying on the kitchen floor, head empty of any anxieties, any worries about Nationals. In this moment, they aren’t the freak duo of Karasuno, they aren't just best friends, they are Shouyou and Tobio: two sides of the same coin, pressed against eachother, existing in complete harmony.


End file.
